In the latest issue of the New York Times magazine, Nicki Minaj says something extremely well-reasoned regarding Miley Cyrus’s engagement with black culture. It is pointed and specific without getting unfairly personal or malicious. All internet thinkpieces should strive for its tone and succinctness. In fact, it is, in a paragraph, the ultimate internet thinkpiece:
Critics agree: Aloha is the worst film Cameron Crowe has ever made (reminder: Cameron Crowe made We Bought a Zoo). Sony Pictures exec Amy Pascal infamously wrote in a leaked email that “It never … Not even once … ever works.” But the least workable thing, according to Cameron Crowe, is that you got mad when he cast the translucently white Emma Stone as a woman who’s a quarter Asian. Cameron Crowe is sorry you were offended.
Last week, arts organization BRIC announced a June 26 screening of the seminal 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning as part of its Celebrate Brooklyn! program. Invited to help present the screening was the movie’s director, Jennie Livingston, musician/artist JD Samson, who was to perform a DJ set, and exactly zero queer people of color or members of the ballroom community. That community of mostly black and Latin gay men and trans women who compete in pageant-like balls while voguing and wearing all kinds of drag provided the basis of Livingston’s doc and thrives today. It would have been extremely easy to reach out—I attended a PIB screening in November at a very tiny film festival (we watched it in a church!) and Milton Ninja (of the Legendary House of Ninja) spoke after the movie. These people are around and they’re still eager to share their experiences.
E! mainstay Giulana Rancic is determined to prove she is not racist. Like picking at a scab as it heals, Rancic appeared on the TODAY show Monday to talk about that time she made a racist comment about Zendaya's Oscar style. She hopes everyone can forget that time she made a racist comment about Zendaya's Oscar style.
